What Car Did Harry Lyon Drive? – The Answer to Tuesday’s Search Challenge

Based on the lists of American car producers and what we know about Lyon, Ford is the most common guess as it was the most popular brand name in the United States at the time and is still in the leading edge of Americans minds today when they think of automobile producers. Now its a matter of comparing photos of cars produced by those makers during the 1910s and early 1920s.

A search for “1920s cars and trucks” or “1910s vehicles” is a starting location. Compare the images closely to those of the photo of Lyon sitting in his automobile and youll start to see that the shape of the door in his automobile does not match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). Disclosure: I spent at least 10 hours comparing images of vehicles to the one of Lyon sitting in his automobile. To validate my information about the automobile I got the help of one the top antique vehicle preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

On Tuesday I shared
a search difficulty and wrote that you could email me if you desired the responses to the concerns in the obstacle. I got
Yesterday morning I spent time writing out the process of discovering the answers to Tuesdays search difficulty. If you missed out on the challenge, you can
find it here. The solution is detailed below..

As mentioned above, the leading Google search results page for “southern cross aircraft” is the Wikipedia page about the plane. Go through that page and youll learn that it was the first airplane to be flown from the United States to Australia.

Additionally, you could have followed the hint about using the Maine Memory Networks site then headed there to do a search within the website for references to Harry Lyon.

To do this youll want to enlarge the picture discovered on the Maine Memory Networks short article about Lyon. By zooming in on the image you can look at some crucial details including the shape of the front door on the cars and truck, the shape of the front of the car, and a little badge on the front of the automobile.

Do a quick Google search for “southern cross plane” and the top result will be a Wikipedia page about the airplane. Its crucial to include “airplane” in the search since searching Google for just “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash tune Southern Cross at the top of the results. Even more down the search results page for “southern cross” youll find links to posts about the constellation of the very same name, links to an energy company, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry.

Usage Google Images to discover images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge cars produced in those years. Compare the pictures closely to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his automobile and youll begin to see that the shape of the door in his cars and truck doesnt match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). In all three cases, the Dodge examples are consistent with what we see in the image of Lyon in his vehicle.

At this point the procedure becomes a little bit of guesswork followed by a process of comparison and removal. There are some indicate consider before rating what kind of cars and truck remains in the image. Heres a list of those points to consider:.
The image was taken in 1927, a year prior to the flight of the Southern Cross.
From reading about him, we understand that Lyon was not a man of remarkable wealth, however most likely middle to upper-middle class.
Based upon Lyons financial standing as well as looking at the information of the car we can most likely get rid of luxury brand names from our guesswork.
When we zoom-in on the cars and truck we can see that it has some imperfections as the outcome of driving and or post-manufacturing adjustment. Notable, there are what seems two wood bench seats behind the motorists seat. The back half of the body seems wood as well.

Disclosure: I spent at least ten hours comparing images of cars to the one of Lyon sitting in his automobile. To confirm my info about the cars and truck I enlisted the help of one the top antique vehicle preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

There are a couple of ways to get to the responses. What Ive laid out listed below is the most direct way to get to the answers. (Thanks again to Daniel Russells.
Delight of Search for motivating the development of search difficulties like this one).

Step 3: Find the recommendation to Paris Hill. If you follow the link to the Maine Memory Network from the Wikipedia page about Harry Lyon, youll discover a fairly long article about Lyon and his life including that his moms and dads bought a house on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

Step 4: Find the reference to a car. At the really bottom of this Maine Memory Network page about Harry Lyon youll see a photo of Lyon being in a vehicle in his driveway in 1927. (The image is copyrighted so youll have to see it there)..

Once youve recognized who the members of the flight team were, the next action is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine. Lyons page consists of “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks website which is mentioned in the tips for this difficulty.

By zooming in on the image you can look at some important details including the shape of the front door on the car, the shape of the front of the cars and truck, and a little badge on the front of the automobile.

Step 2: Identify who flew on the aircraft.
On that same Wikipedia page youll learn that the four members of the flight crew were Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner.

Now that weve considered the points above we can start guessing at the manufacturer of the vehicle and the production year. Noting that vehicles didnt significantly change from one model year to the next at this time, if they did at all, were guessing the year according to years or half-decade is a practical technique to this obstacle. A search for “1920s vehicles” or “1910s vehicles” is a starting place.

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